Now imagine you’ve just engaged in whatever sin plagues you the most. Whatever it is, you’ve just done it for at least the thousandth time.

Can you feel God’s disappointment, His patience starting to wear a little thin?

Can you feel it?

Then you don’t understand grace.

In Ephesians 1:3-4, Paul writes:

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.

When you placed your faith in Christ (assuming that you have), something incredible happened to you. You were made a new person and were blessed in the heavenly realm with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

Let’s unpack that statement for a minute. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old is gone, the new has come!” You are not who you were before. The old you that was hostile toward and separated from God was crucified with Christ. You became a new creation–one that has been (past tense!) blessed with every (not just some!) spiritual blessing in Christ.

One of those spiritual blessings is being chosen by God to be holy and blameless in His sight. Through the death and resurrection of Jesus, you have been made holy and blameless. You. Holy and blameless. Not just in the future. Today.

God is not looking at your poor performance and persistent sins when He looks at you. Your standing before Him is not based on what you do or don’t do. Your standing before Him is based on what Jesus did.

So what does this mean?

It means that God is not disappointed with you. His patience is not running out. He doesn’t get disgusted with you when you sin. He dealt with your sin once and for all on the cross. Jesus took care of your sin. He removed it from you as far as the east is from the west.

To live under God’s grace means that we approach Him through the merit of Jesus. In ourselves, we could never approach a holy God, but we can through Jesus.

We don’t perform to gain God’s favor. We already have His favor because of what Jesus did. We work to obey Him out of love and gratitude for what He has already done for us, not because we fear what He might do to us.

Here’s the take-away for today: God is not disappointed with you. How could He be when the person He sees in you is Jesus?

Abigail,
I’m glad this post helped you. It will be a process to renew your thinking on how God views you. Don’t get discouraged if old thoughts creep back in. Just reject them and choose to believe the truth.

Sometimes, it feels like God is far away, but now I have come to realize that it is ME who is far away. God is there all the time. Any feelings of inferiority come from the devil. I think he wants me to feel like God is disappointed with me. That is what they mean probably that since becoming born again, there is now a spiritual war for my soul. I choose CHRIST. Watch over me Jesus, set your mark upon me, that you might know me in that great and terrible day of justice…

Thank you brother Gregg for sharing this with me. I am an 18-year old and just a few minutes ago, i felt like giving up with christianity, because i feel so unworthy to even say His name. I have repeatedly sinned – sometimes knowingly – and i just don’t understand how God can look past them. It’s better to be cold than lukewarm, and at the moment, i don’t think i can get the intimate relationship i want with God, for the world is clasping me so tight. Your blog has made me understand a bit about God’s grace, but brother Gregg, i’ve fallen too many times that i’m too tired and afraid to persue Him.

Ola,
I understand how you’re feeling. I can struggle with similar thoughts and feelings.

Please do not give up on seeking God. He does not want you to quit. More than anything, He wants you to know you are deeply loved no matter what you’ve done or will do.

Remember, God IS love. You and I choose (verb) to love. When it comes to God though, love is not only a verb, but a noun. He IS love.

So therefore, He cannot stop loving you and desiring you. He would have to stop being Himself. You can be 100% confident that He loves you, He desires you and He longs for you. And nothing you do or don’t do will change that.

Ola, your relationship with God is based on grace and grace alone. You do not earn God’s love. It’s a gift. You were forgiven by grace and you now live by grace. And His grace is inexhaustible. It has no limits. It swallows up our every sin.

I know you feel like you are not worthy to approach God and receive His love. But God is not loving you based on your performance. He’s loving you based on what Jesus did on your behalf.

You may feel sinful and unworthy, but the truth is that God sees you as holy and blameless. (Read Ephesians 1)

Think of it this way–how good would you have to be to earn God’s love and blessing? If you did your best to not sin, prayed throughout the day, read your Bible for two hours every morning and gave 10% of your income to Him–would that make you acceptable to Him?

If not, how much better would you need to be? Do you need to live that way for an entire week? Two weeks?

The point is this: you cannot ever earn God’s love by being good because it has never been based on your degree of goodness. It has always been and always will be based on Christ’s death and resurrection.

The Message Bible says is this way:

By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise. (Romans 5:1-2)

It’s the enemy who wants you to believe God is angry and disappointed with you. Don’t believe his lies. Keep seeking God–He enjoys it when you do. (Hebrews 11:6).

Thanks so much for this post. I’ve been struggling a lot lately like feeling I’ve been like the Isrealites who’d seen God work, were so close to their promised land, but then missed it b/c of thier persistent unbelief. I feel like I did that & I’m struggling with the fact that I felt led to do something & instead of just being obedient, I kept questioning it & I guess just trying to avoid what seemed like such a hard path. I realize now that there are so many blessings in following God’s way of doing things. I already knew that too, but I kept allowing the enemy to decieve me with lies & now I feel like I’ve missed out on a huge blessing from God & I didn’t prove to him I was capable or ready for the task He was calling me to. It’s made me feel unloved & rejected. I feel like I rejected Him though I never wanted to do that. Hebrews warns us not to fall away and I have become so fearful that I’ve fallen away & can’t get back to having that full fellowship with Him that I know I once felt. It’s a scary feeling & I don’t like it. I want to just believe it’s okay, but it’s soo hard when I feel like I was pretty much choosing to be disobedient by not just making my next heartbeat a heartbeat of obedience. I keep thinking, how could I allow the enemy to drag me away when I’d seen so many amazing things that God has done for me. …

This is so beautiful! God is truly who he said. I just want to say I’m so sorry father! Please forgive your child for turning away and being disobedient. You deserve to be loved praised glorified and obeyed with every breath I have in me! Thank you Holy Father! Thank you Brother Jesus, our saviour!! Thank you for knowing my loving this wretched person and forgiving me O Lord. I can only cry right now!

thanks i need this article. i really hope this is true, i keep feeling that God is tired of me though. i wouldn’t be surprised though if he were. i have backslidden again, and i am just feeling quite miserable now. i just hope this is true, that he hasnt give up on me, even though i keep failing.

I don’t know why I have such a problem understanding God’s Grace. I love Him, but I find myself worrying all the time and worry is sin…it is the opposite of faith and without faith,it is impossible to please God. I feel like I am telling Him all the time by my worry and lack of peace and joy that I don’t trust Him and I do. I started thinking that He must be fed up with me. I have been praying for the past few months for more of Him and less of me. It seems that since I have been praying that prayer, I see more and more wrong with me. I know I can’t get it right…..the attitudes, anxiety, worry, feelings of rejection…they are all part of the self that I want to get rid of so I can be filled with Him…His Love for others and for myself…to accept myself as I am..this is very hard for me. I am glad that I came to this site today, it has helped me remember that I cannot earn His approval. Thank You and please pray for me that I will remember this…I am so miserable when I forget, Carol

Carol,
Beyond any shadow of a doubt, I believe you are deeply loved and totally accepted by God. He’s crazy about you and nothing you can do to change that!

Your worrying won’t cause Him to love you less. Your anxiety won’t cause Him to turn away. In fact, there’s nothing, absolutely nothing you can do to cause Him to be fed up with you.

You’re not a disappointment to God, you’re a pleasing daughter!

When your Father looks at you, He doesn’t even see your sin. You might feel the need to continually confess your list of sins, but it’s like He’s saying, “What sins are you talking about, Carol? I’ve forgiven and forgotten them. Why don’t you forget them as well?”

Jesus’ death was enough. He took our failures, our guilt, our shame–He took all of it on Himself when He hung on the cross, so we would never have to bear that burden.

Satan wants you to believe you’re still under condemnation, but it’s not true. He’s lying to you. And the problem with a lie is that when we believe it long enough, we think it’s true. That’s the definition of deception.

Satan is deceiving you into thinking God is displeased with you, but the truth is that God is pleased with you because He has given you the righteousness of Christ.

Think about it this way–would you ever tell one of your friends that God is fed up with her because she feels anxious?

My guess is that you would never say that or believe it. I’m sure you would encourage your friend to keep seeking and trusting God and to know for sure how much she is loved by Him.

So if it’s not true for someone else, why would you believe it for you?

The key will be to not believe every thought you have. Some of them are lies. Some of them are lies you’ve believed for a long time.

You will need to choose to reject the lies and believe that what God says about you is true. You are loved. You are forgiven. You are accepted. You are under grace. You have been given the righteousness of Christ.

It will take work to root out the lies and believe the truth about yourself, but you can do it.

Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you really are my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

Believing the truth will set you free from the bondage of deception you’ve been under. You can do it though. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you every moment of the day.

The battle will feel more intense at first as you are starting to break free. The enemy will not want you to experience freedom. But his only power is to keep lying to you.

Randi,
I’m glad this post was helpful. It’s easy to believe God is angry or disappointed with us, but He’s not. Sometimes it might be helpful to ask yourself, “Would I tell someone else to believe what I’m feeling?” For example, if a friend confided in you about a failure or sin–would you tell that person God was disappointed with them and running out of patience? Probably not. Most likely, you’d reassure them of God’s love and grace. So if you wouldn’t say it to someone else–don’t believe it for you either.

I understand this, and I know what TRUE grace is – despite forgetting it every once in a while…

My problem, however, is that I keep on losing my way. I know there is a God, and that He loves me. I love Him as well. But I don’t study the bible because I can’t seem to find it interesting. Reading is one of the things I disregard/dislike. Even the Bible.

It’s just not that interesting; thus the enemy will find it easy to attack me spiritually – which goes over to mental attacks etc… (imo)

I don’t know what to do. I want an amazing and wild relationship with God. I just don’t know how to keep it. I’ve been having this problem since the day I turned my life over to him, and repented countless and countless times. As much as I know that it’s natural to do so, it gets frustrating. Every single year, at the threshold, I tell myself “This year is the year for you. The year you show your true potential in faith”.

This helps me a great deal! When I was saved,I felt saved and useful.I’m not perfect
by any measure and often feel weak and defeated.I was sure that blessings were being kept from me because I was disappointi GOD and not living up toa
level worthy of blessings.YOur words have helped and I hope to keep them in my heart!!

Thank you for reminding me of God’s everlasting power and willingness to love and forgive.
I don’t want to question His desire to embrace us and assure us of mercy ever again.
Your words are truly precious, I hope to keep them in my heart, too.

thanks for this! i feel like i mess up so often in my walk with Christ and God is so dissapointed with me, cause i say ‘this is the last time’ so many times. I feel ashamed, so glad God is a forgiving God!

Thanks for this article. I have accepted Christ a long time ago but have had to continually repent over and over many times. I believe I am saved only through Jesus Christ, but if I don’t stop sinning what then? I tried to repent many times but still fall back into the sin. Didn’t Jesus say “go and sin no more” and “repent”? This is where I am feeling condemned or separated from fellowship with God. I want to believe I am accepted but what about bearing the fruit of repentance?

Several years ago, I met with a young man who struggled greatly with a pornography addiction. He’d avoid it for awhile, but would inevitably slip back into it, which would bring feelings of guilt and shame. My encouragement to him was to not let those feelings keep him from seeking God. Rather than focusing on the sin, I wanted him to focus on Christ. Let me encourage you to do the same. Yes, we should try to stop sinning, but even more than that–I believe we need to seek Christ.

Make it your goal to know Christ better. Focus on growing in your friendship with Him. When you sin, refuse to let it keep you from reading your Bible, talking to God and hanging around with others who can encourage you. As you know Him better and trust Him more, the power of sin will be diminished.

Through my tears I apologize to God for the ways I have disappointed Him & have not lived up to my promise on occasions.Then I think of my late mom.She loved me unconditionally.Never once did she tell me that I had let her down or was a failure at times.I know that I did let her down sometimes as I can vividly recall the incidents in detail. If my wonderful mom can do this then God does too for you & me. I struggle terribly to forgive myself. Someone once wrote that if God,Jesus,& your own mom forgive you,then who are you not to forgive yourself? However,it is still difficult for me to do this. I continue to try.

This is what I just needed. It’s like I was meant to see this especially when you talked about pornography. Sometimes I would go months without watching porn but somehow I end up watching it(and we all know what it makes you do while watching). I feel so guilty that I wish I could die and stop living because it’s sooo hard not to sin and God is always good to me and here I am repaying him with my sinful ways ;especially that sin particularly. I pray about it almost everyday ,sometimes I feel I have been delivered but I am still weak and I easily give in to my temptation. Well, I am young, 18, and as a teenage boy it’s not easy to control my sexual desires but I try.

I really felt like I disappointed him that’s how I ended up reading this article and I always feel like his patience is running out on me with the same sin that I commit.

Anyway, great article. It made me smile and God bless you and your family.

I often (always) feel like I’ve disappointed God. I’ve been a Christian for so long and yet still struggle so much. I feel that I should be much further along in my walk. I guess tomorrow I’ll just have to start it all over again. It truly is AMAZING GRACE!!!!

I have felt like a disappointment to God for years. I have spent so much time trying to make God proud of me. I wore condemnation like it was a jacket. I was feeling stuck almost like my life was a Groundhog Day..repeating the same things/sins over and over again. Thank you so much for writing this blog post. I am so encouraged to know that His Grace really is sufficient. I don’t have to impress with my “works”. I don’t! I am looking forward to growing closer in my relationship with God. I do do with a new understanding of His grace,mercy and Love!

I thank God for His grace because I was about to quit on something because I thought it is useless to continue with it because God is no impress about,but now I knom that there is nothing Left for me to do to impress God but JESUS CHRIST did everything on my behalf so what I need to do is to have faith and stick on His unfailling love

I feel like God is disappointed with me today and a lot of other days. I am trying to live according to God’s word but I am failing. On Friday night my husband and I went out drinking and partying until 2 in the morning.. I feel that this lifestyle does not suit the lifestyle of a Christian. And I always regret it afterwards… But no matter what I try to do I always seem to end up in a similar situation again feeling guilty afterwards… I don’t know what to do anymore… Sometimes it feels as if I am not really saved.. I am suppose to win people for God’s kingdom and I am doing the opposite… I don’t know how to fix this anymore?

Hi Geri, thanks for your comment. I think the very fact that you feel regret proves you are saved and genuinely want to please God. If you weren’t saved, you’d have no desire to live for Christ. The enemy loves to tempt us to sin, then piles on the guilt and shame when we do. Then when we do blow it, we feel like there needs to be a cooling off period between us and God…like He’s angry or disappointed and we need to earn our way back into His presence. The way you feel after certain activities is due to the fact that you’re living in disharmony. You have a new nature, but sometimes walk according to old ways. Before you were a Christian, you could do that and actually be in harmony with yourself, because you had a sin nature.

Let me encourage you to not stop seeking God. Choose to believe He loves you. There’s nothing you can do to ever cause Him to not love you. Read Romans 8 this week. Spend time meditating on that chapter. Keep reading it over and over. Ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you and make it real in your life. And be honest with God. Tell him you desire to walk according to His ways and need His power. As you know Him better, I think you may find you can trust Him more. Then rather than looking for other ways to experience life, you’ll find more contentment in Him.

I love reading all the comments on here. I always felt like a crazy person with what i thought was weird questions and the emotional rollercoaster I have been on. My family don’t understand what am going through and besides God i felt like i had no one to talk to. But i also experienced those times when i felt i had had

I love reading all the comments on here. I always felt like a crazy person with what i thought was weird questions and the emotional rollercoaster I have been on. My family don’t understand what am going through and besides God i felt like i had no one to talk to. But i also experienced those times when i felt i had had disappointed Him and like i had too earn my way back into his presence just as Greg said. This blog has touched on every thing and more that I’ve been experiencing. And its so comforting knowing that others out there understand. Thank you are sincerely. Greg you are awesome and i pray My Father continues to use you.

I came across your post today and this was what I needed to hear. I feel like God is disappointed in me because I did not do what was required of me to do in my marriage as a husband. Me and my wife divorced about 5 years ago and after 3 years,(we re-married 2 years ago), God restored our relationship/marriage, but I have inadvertently failed to love and honor my wife, (not by cheating), but being very lazy and complacent about loving her as Christ loved the church. I have made her feel taken for granted and neglected. She is really angry at me and is not sure she still loves me anymore or want to be together. I feel God must be disappointed in me because I have ruined his work of restoring the marriage. I feel like I have wreaked all of His gracious works toward us and fouled up His will for our lives.

I just wanted to say how amazing it is to me that this was originally posted in 2009 and is still ministering to individuals like myself today! In 2017! That’s definitely God’s goodness! So many feel the way I do, that we’ve disappointed God because we haven’t “lived up” to what we think we should be as Christians. It’s like we think God is just fed up with us and that He’s gonna just write us off. Thank you Gregg for helping us to understand that God never stops loving us and He never gives up on us.

I seriously worry myself sick, beating myself up over not getting certain things right. I feel like I’m consistently letting him down over and over, and I feel like I try to follow his will but because my situations aren’t ideal, I assume it’s b/c I’m not listening or obeying him. I often feel like I’m ruining all these good plans he has for me because I am never sure of what I’m supposed to do or not do. One of my biggest struggles is believing he loves me no matter what. ;/